


Certainty

by Hyena_Poison



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-10
Updated: 2014-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 05:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1128832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hyena_Poison/pseuds/Hyena_Poison
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After rescuing Jesse, Walter discovers the extent of his abuse at the Nazis' hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Certainty

**Author's Note:**

> Filled for a [Kinkmeme](http://brbakinkmeme.livejournal.com/521.html?thread=215305#t215305/) prompt.

He can’t remember when it starts, when everything shifts from one place to another. As they drove, maybe, days and days until desert shifts to grasslands, grasslands into ragged hills bearded with pines. During the sleeps in the car, fighting away darkness that has nothing to do with night. When they eat greasy burgers in a McDonald’s parking-lot, their first meal in days.

Walt thinks maybe it was their first night at the hotel, hearing the kid’s sobs over the running water of the shower—the way the scars on his face are so much more prominent with his wet hair slicked back when Jesse finally opens the bathroom door. They say nothing, and Jesse curls up on the bed, back to Walt. And Walt thinks maybe it was waking up in the night, hearing the small, breathless pleas Jesse whimpers in his sleep.

When Walt wakes up in the morning, Jesse is gone. He does not know what to think, what to feel, only a wash of complete exhaustion. He is surprised when some hours later, Jesse is back, without a word or explanation; Walt does not ask him, lets him crawl onto the bed in silence. But Walt feels that exhaustion, that empty weight, slip away just a little.

Three days later, more running and paranoid backward glances, and Walt stops; they need rest. Walt gets a room, tries to wake Jesse up, get him out of the car. He opens the passenger door, and Jesse slides out onto the pavement, limp and barely awake. He looks around, makes sure no one is watching, before hoisting Jesse up, stumbling together into the room.

His forehead burns Walter’s hand; Jesse tries to squirm away as Walt checks his pulse. He tells Jesse to sleep, to rest, while he finds a drug store; he can’t remember if Jesse had been asleep for the drive, if he had eaten, when he’d started to get sick. Walt hadn’t been watching, hadn’t even bothered to look.

Cold medicine and water, warm soup from the microwave; the fever isn’t going down, and Walt runs a cold bath, makes Jesse get up. He starts to lift the shirt over his head when Jesse starts to struggle, weak and halting.

It’s the first time Walt sees the scars, the bruises. Burns, cuts, bite marks—dark and fading patches across his ribs and hips. Jesse stops fighting and starts shaking, eyes locked on the wall behind Walter. He lets him take the jeans off—more injuries, old and newer, that Walt does not completely register—doesn’t make a noise as Walt drags him into the bathroom, only gasps as he slides into the cold water. He calls him ‘son’, tells him around a cough that everything is okay.

Jesse starts to cry, little quiet shudders at first, melting into sobs that nearly break them both. Walt soothes him as best he can, rubs his shoulders, his neck, his back. When the emotion and fever drain him, Jesse leans against the tub, lets Walt wash his hair and broken skin. Walt half-carries him to a bed, forces another aspirin on him, and Jesse sleeps like a dead thing.

The fever breaks in the night. Walt loads Jesse into the back seat, bundled in stolen blankets, and starts to drive. He will make sure to watch this time. 

\-------

He doesn’t know when it turns into, whatever this it. He can’t remember when exactly Jesse starts sleeping in the same bed as him, or how many times they sleep against one another before it isn’t just sleeping anymore.

They stop in northern Canada, rent a little house in a town that could be considered remote. It is months before their paranoia relaxes its grip, months before they can even try to make a life. This is better than the last cabin, Walt thinks—it’s just as small, just as cold and rugged—but it holds him differently, less desperate and void.

They try to keep busy, keep their minds off a different world. Walt collects what books he can from town, buys an old radio and TV. Jesse walks, miles and hours in no particular direction. Walt thinks that one day, Jesse will not come back.

But tonight, he does comes back, a distant cast to his eyes that Walt has learned to watch for. Walt tries to talk to him, sometimes, about what happened at the compound—about what he knows happened—but makes little ground. Walt does not push, remains patient.

He sits on the bed, motions Jesse over, who straddles his lap. Jesse gives what passes for a smile—nothing bright or wide like before, but Walt knows this is the best he can do right now, that he is trying. He cups his face, brushes blonde hair from his eyes, kisses his temples and forehead. Kisses each of the scars on his cheeks, the bridge of his nose, his eyebrow. Jesse stiffens, moves his face away to nuzzle at Walt’s neck. Walt tries to lift up his sweater.

Jesse freezes and brushes Walt’s hands away. He doesn’t take off his sweaters or shirts in front of him; he tells Walt it’s the arid, ever-present chill of the house. Walt knows the truth, knows Jesse knows he knows, but he lets it be, lets Jesse have this lie. He moves Jesse onto his back, knocking books from the bed and onto the floor. Walt leans over him, watches his face as he pushes the sweater up to his collar bones; Jesse turns away, hiding his face in the curve of an arm. Walt kisses the scars he finds there—oval burns, irregular scrapes and jagged little lines; Jesse sniffs, shivers with something other than cold. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask about the tears, tries to radiate gentleness through his fingers and lips, tries to show Jesse how wanted he is.

Walt pulls Jesse close then, drags away his arm to kiss the corner of his eye, the wet lines on his cheeks. He holds him for something like hours, until they are both stiff and tired. He whispers to him then, tells Jesse what he feels for him, how he needs him.

He isn’t sure when words like ‘love’ and ‘need’ became a part of this mess, but he knows there is truth in them now. There is a certainty.


End file.
